Our Skeletons

The Costumes
Back in September, Noah spent 24hrs campaigning to wear a skeleton costume to a superhero birthday party: 1. Pirates like skeletons. 2. Doctors use skeletons to help people. 3. Superheros help people => Skeletons are superheros! 
He went as a firefighter.

But 2 weeks later, we visited Josh's clinic to find a skeleton poster on his wall. I knew right then it was game over. So we dove in, buying second-hand black clothes and glow-in-the-dark paint. I figured Aaron would want to copy Noah so we might as well do both.

Until we were putting on costumes this afternoon and Aaron insisted on his firefighter costume (from when N was 2). Hence, we had a fire-fighting skeleton and a motorcycling skeleton on our neighborhood rounds this evening.

The Anticipation
Noah, the veteran, has been counting down the days. He spent most of the neighborhood pre-party (stocked with brownies & cookies) asking when we could go house-to-house for candy.

The Discovery
I was amazed how quickly Aaron caught on to the pattern: walk to door, get candy, eat candy, repeat. We weren't planning to eat as we walked, but he was so devastated that people were giving him candy and we were taking it away, that I figured I'd let him suck on a lollipop while we walked. I didn't realize this would create the expectation that he would eat whatever he received when he received it. When we got to the next door, he put his half-eaten lollipop in the candy basket so he could pick up something new.

He also found it disconcerting that he was shown a treasure trove of candy, allowed to take some, and then not allowed to take all of it. But he worked through the trauma like any good candy-lover and used the extra sugar high to make it around the block with plenty of energy to spare when he got home.

We Get Around

Atlanta, GA.
Women of Faith conference for the moms = music, stories, encouragement.
Visit with uncle & cousins for the boys = play, play, and more play.
Everybody wins!

Chicago, IL.
My cousin's gorgeous wedding in the city = date weekend and family reunion in one.
Hurray for marriage!

Louisville, KY. 
Visit with Maw-maw & Papa Ball before Aunt Rebecca leaves for France = S'amuser à la ferme!
Bon Voyage!

Charleston, SC.
Noah's big trip with Grandma & Papa Denny = Top Gun & Backdraft for tots.
Coolness!

Huggie-Huggies

I've had a flood of freelance writing projects in the last couple of months, with a few repercussions:

1. If you see a blog post back-dated to August, don't panic. It really is October now. I'm just catching up.
2. My enthusiasm for several new Christian books may become...at times...obnoxious.
3. I've had moments when everything else has infringed on my most precious activity, requiring deliberate discipline and re-setting my attitude. This is not too hard, given the centerpieces of that precious activity...

Of course, life with toddlers is not all joy. But it does offer SO MANY opportunities for humor. It would be a crime to let them pass unnoticed. Like when a giggling tent walks through the kitchen...

 

Or my 2-yr-old insists on wearing his waterwings during our walk (yes, it's Oct).

My 4-yr-old wears an "eye patch" out to lunch and a "pirate hat" to the park (in his PJs).

 

I find a surprise in the coffee cabinet.

He fishes his chicken nugget out of the honey-mustard to dip it in the ketchup and then drop it in his yogurt, before eating it.

His feet don't reach the plastic during his first dental cleaning.

At 2, he already loves slides. Big slides.

Or even better, sliding with his brother. Noah named this, the "huggie huggie."

To Hell in a Handbasket? - Part 3

I have written at least five different versions of “Part 3.” I can’t decide if I need additional parts, or should never have promised a third part. I’m pretty sure I set myself an impossible task when I offered to answer the question, “What’s it all mean?”

Because I don’t know. I’m still in process. One thing I’ve been realizing through this process is that I am constantly living in the tension between two truths:

• God has created a world and a people that feature His creativity, His problem-solving abilities, His humor and beauty and community, etc.
• Evil has corrupted that world and is constantly striving towards chaos, towards destruction, towards pain.

In a sense, we’re living in those two “worlds” – the one God made and loves and came to save (John 1:29, 3:16-17, 4:42, 12:47, 2 Cor 5:18-19, 1 John 4:14), and the “world” that is bent on rebelling against Him (John 15:19, Eph 6:12, 1 Cor 2:12, 3:3, James 4:4, 1 John 2:15-16, 5:19).

Last night, I read statistics about the pornography industry and it made me sick to my stomach. This morning, I baked madeleines with my beautiful boys as the sun streamed in the window. This afternoon, I prayed for a friend whose father died and brother’s in jail. Tonight, I saw preparations for a ministry to young moms that is bursting at the seams.

So in essence, when I ask if the world is getting worse, what I’m really asking, what I really want to know is –

Who’s winning? Right now? Tomorrow? Next year? When my sons are my age, who will be winning? 

Do we have to wait for death or Christ’s return to experience any victory or hope? Or is it possible here, in this world He made, into which He sent His Son and His Spirit, which He loves and came to save…that he’s given us a fighting chance to make inroads, to see progress, to help prepare us and this world for His return.

I know evil is not done yet. But I also see reason to believe that we are more than conquerors NOW.  That we have reason to rejoice now. And it’s not all just spiritual. It’s not all just about craving Heaven. It’s also here, and now, and through obedience to His commands to help and serve and feed and clothe that we see victory.

If God is for us, who can be against us? …Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Paul to the Romans 

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. – Paul to the Philippians 

To Hell in a Handbasket? - Part 2

Please be sure to read Part 1 first!

What do we observe in the world?
This can feel like an overwhelming task. About 6 months ago, I read Freakonomics and LOVED the authors' commitment to examining conventional wisdom and determining its validity - something Jesus did quite often. So, I'm going to touch on a few hot topics (not a comprehensive list!) and then get into the metaphysical. Please don't interpret this as undervaluing or dismissing these important issues. Instead, I'm trying to VERY briefly summarize global trends on key measures of health, safety, and well-being. My point is not to prove that everything is getting better - just to see if the data supports the assumption that it's getting worse. Here goes...


MORTALITY: The global average for life expectancy has doubled since 1900 (from 31 to 67)
(WHO). Child deaths fell 30% from 1990-2008. In every category I could find except diabetes, mortality/morbidity has improved dramatically over time.

VIOLENCE: There have been countless peaks of cruelty (Nero, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Darfur, etc) but not a steady increase. "In recent decades, despite the growth in population, the number of war casualties around the world has declined - as have the number of terrorist casualties. In some earlier generations, 25% of the male population died violent deaths. Over the past century, even counting the world wars, a person's chance of dying from war or violent civil strife was less than 2%." (RD)

EDUCATION: "In 1970, barely half the people in the world were literate, and many could afford only a few books...Today, more than 80% of the world's people can read, and 22% have access to the Internet." In 2010, enrollment in primary education reached 89% in the developing world (FAO).

NATURAL DISASTERS: Globally, "extreme weather" accounts for about 0.02% of all deaths - near the bottom of the list for causes of death (and not even listed on most charts).

HUNGER: While incomes have risen since 1950, the inflation-adjusted price of food has declined by 75%, according to the World Resources Institute, 2009. The global poverty rate is expected to fall to 15% by 2015, half the rate of 1990 (UN).
     Year: Share of malnourished people in the developing world
     1970: 37%
     1980: 28%
     1990: 20%
     2009: 16 %
     -- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

SEXUALITY: While Western promiscuity (sex outside of marriage) seems to have increased (see The Myth of Rampant Teenage Promiscuity for an example of how even this can be debated), this is relative to modern times. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to nail down historical statistics because for most of history, women were considered property. Which leads us to...

BIGOTRY: It's hard to overestimate how far we've come in the past century when it comes to respecting the lives and value of others - women, minorities, etc. The evidence is so overwhelming, we'll just move on...

ENVIRONMENT: The conservation movement is almost entirely a modern phenomenon since past centuries often considered Earth's resources practically unlimited. While we have bigger environmental issues to face, we also have unprecedented resources pointed at those problems -- and unprecedented awareness and participation from citizens to governments to businesses.

CHRISTIANITY: 33% (2 billion) of the world's population is considered to be Christian. Evangelicals have grown from only 3 million in 1500AD (00.6% of the population) to 648 million worldwide in 2001 (10.5% of global population). -- Center for the Study of Global Christianity

Bottom Line: Our generation globally lives longer, safer, and healthier than any generation before it. We unwittingly experience less risk than past generations. And future generations are expected to be even healthier and safer for longer than us.

So what's it all mean?
Stay tuned for Part 3! The last installment. I think.

*Unless otherwise noted, stats came from the Human Security Report Project and John Mueller of OSU, quoted in Readers Digest, Feb 2009.

To Hell in a Handbasket? - Part 1

I began this post 15 months ago but decided to take more time researching it. But before we jump into it, if you need a refresher on my disclaimer (one that definitely applies here), please read it. With that in mind, here's what I've found so far...

I was in 4th grade when I found out how the world was going to end. We were studying Revelation in Sunday school and watched a movie with beasts and fire and car crashes. It was hell on earth, and it gave me nightmares.

The movie also gave me a popular piece of the fundamentalist Christian worldview: the world is getting worse and worse until the book of Revelation literally comes true and Christ returns. In its more popular form, the assumption is simply that the world is getting worse. The latter shows up in some surprising places -- including O Magazine this month, parenting conversations, countless sermons, FB, and on both sides of the political aisle -- though it is not universal.

How does this belief affect us?

- It creates a dark inevitability around current societal problems, leading to helplessness, defeatism, cynicism, and apathy.
- If culture is always regressing, then it will always be better to hold on to the past, to try to slow this regression (hence the term "conservative" in the "disposed to maintain existing views" sense). Said another way, it encourages fear of change and fear of the future.
- The easiest alternative to an irreversibly degenerative culture is isolation from it.

Why is this belief so pervasive?

1. It appeals to our instinct for survival. Any newspaper knows "The World is Ending" will outsell "Peace on Earth" 10 to 1. We want to be prepared, to know what we're up against. Thus, we feast on a diet of bad news.
2. We have particular ideas about what constitutes "worse." ex. Promiscuity and divorce are considered "worse" than bigotry and legalism; Stewardship and service are valued less than obedience; We assume the prodigal son was "worse" than his older brother.
3. We don't know enough history, so we dismiss or idealize it.
4. The evil in the world is desperate to convince us that resistance is pointless.

As with so many issues, as I've become aware of my own presuppositions, I've had to re-examine them in light of special revelation (the Bible) and general revelation (the world). This is still a work in progress, but thus far, most of the evidence seems to point toward an encouraging result.

What does the Bible say?

Even a cursory reading of the Bible does not seem to show a description of a world getting worse. Certainly sin corrupts and can lead to a downward spiral (individuals in Rom 1, a whole community in Gen 3-6). However, Scripture does not seem to imply this is steady or inevitable across time for the human race. Sodom and Gomorrah existed after Noah's flood but long before David ruled Israel or Christ announced the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15).

As for Revelations, scholars with a high view of Scripture disagree about how to interpret it, but most would not claim that it describes a grand descent over the history of mankind. Furthermore, since we use clearer texts to interpret the less-clear, one would expect that Revelations would not be the only source for a degenerative worldview.

Rather than describing linear degeneration, the patterns of sin and repentance in the Bible appear cyclical or concurrent. As Solomon says, "there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl 1). At the same time, the Bible demonstrates a gradual building of covenant upon covenant (from Adam to Christ) in which additional information is revealed with time, offering more evidence for faith to successive generations (a growing "cloud of witnesses," Heb 11-12).

My biggest challenge in trying to understand this biblically has been the lack of material on the subject. So, if you have any suggestions for books or verses that might be helpful/relevant, please let me know!

What do we observe in the world?

Part 2!

Dishwashers

Unloading



Reloading





















So helpful. ;)